[M] Wizardry Mafia 2.5 - Game Over! Town Wins!

[Misnomer]

Ok, so scanning through the thread and people's rolespecs, I think we could be looking at 3 sorcerers. My reasoning for this is that in Wizardry 2 the total anti-town contingent consisted of 4 scum, 2 sorcs and a Lich-cult. With the cult removed from this game, I'd be surprised if the only thing added to compensate would be an extra scum player - extra scum and extra sorc seems more likely.

As for NAR and dotproduct - if by the end of the day somebody with a shield feels either of them is particularly townie, then they should save them. Otherwise, I say we ignore the missiles for now.

[Not A Raptor]

Wait, you're a non-raptor that gets nervous?



As far an I can find, there have been zero votes cast.
Are you worried someone will get to 11 before a player who would help you does help you?


Since I can't think of anything else to do right now, rolespec:

5 good guys, 2 sorcs
scum have 1 of each role

That's a very good point. Mostly, I was hanging on the fact that spells are quick and easy to cast. However, waiting until the end of the day to help me makes much more sense, now that I think about it.

[VectorZero]

There are other players who make codes all the time, although the one that immediately springs to mind (Krong) isn't playing.

Krong came up with the rename everyone code in Inception, which is remarkably similar. The others in the scum team that game were Lataro (who I replaced) ahippo, weeks and viae (replaced by weiyaoli). Aside from krong, viae and ahippo aren't playing: the other four are all in.

...i might of been a bit rash to suggest going for evocation yesterday...

Lataro is notorious for using this grammatical construction, although I noticed FAOT using it the other day too. Could be easy to fake though.

Not beyond reasonable doubt, but Lataro seems a good place to start looking for scum.

[Dark Loink]

Definitely I will give a better post tonight, but I'll have to agree-a list of codewords that happens to list people under suspicion as codes which we've found in pms is a bit too convienent. Not to mention anti-climatic, at the very least. We can't really glimmer ideas on the alignment of those implicated, but likely of the caster:
As DBC said, a townie should go out and claim this, being a scum target is okay if you've found scum. Its a trade off, in a game where every player could be a doctor. The fact that nobody has, means that they are likely scum/sorc, at this point. This list is then a faked list, potentially made by the scum HW, from the ring, or maybe a sorcerer.
That means that they've probably switched the codes, which means we can't trust this list, and it can't really tell us much. Plus, if scum made this list, they've probably not implicated their own members. But there is also the chance that they've given a mix of town and scum, and so if one were lynched we might draw wrong conclusions about the others.
Pretty much: Ignore it, it will not help us.

TL;DR: This list is wine, and without a username, some sort of trust to tie to it, we can't gather any good info out of it.

Will have a lot more time to put more thought into everything else tonight.

[Adacore]

I'm going to make a logical jump here, so take this as you will. I have a hunch that the scum HW is relatively inexperienced. A more experienced scum player would probably have gone for a more subtle fake-echoes post to try and frame one or more townies. Inserting a reference to a previous game, or more imitating the posting style of one of the players would've probably been more effective than an obviously fake list.

...i might of been a bit rash to suggest going for evocation yesterday...

Lataro is notorious for using this grammatical construction, although I noticed FAOT using it the other day too. Could be easy to fake though.

Not beyond reasonable doubt, but Lataro seems a good place to start looking for scum.

That's a fairly bold suggestion. Lataro posted the scum codebook - admittedly it doesn't preclude his being scum, but if he is that's an incredibly ballsy move. We had no real idea what the scum spell codes meant at that point, so Lataro handed us about half the scum spell selections. Potentially more, if any more echoes results come in. I mean, Lataro is devious enough to do it, but I don't really see it - even if you were planning to reveal the codes, you'd wait longer to see if more echoes-PMs were given in-thread. You'd want to know what you were actually revealing - yeah, scum would know the content of all the PMs, but they wouldn't know which PMs town were going to get.

It's possible, and I hadn't considered it - so good to point it out. But I don't really think it's likely. Even for Lataro.

Sidenote: Is there any way to run a search excluding the discussion thread? Looking for grammatical constructs could be useful, but I don't want to be searching spoilers when I do it.

[Adacore]

EBWOP: You're right though. I did a quick scan, and I can't find anyone but Lataro using "might of been".

[VectorZero]

Searching with -canNever should exclude the discussion thread. It's why the typo was left in.

Lataro uses 'of' ALL the time when he should of used 'have'. Could've, would've, should've, didn't. It shits me no end.

[VectorZero]

EBWOP: You're right though. I did a quick scan, and I can't find anyone but Lataro using "might of been".

I don't know how you're doing that, because when I search for "might of been" it refuses to do so on the grounds that each word is too common.

[Adacore]

I'm using google to search, not the forum search function. Searching term: site:fora.xkcd.com "might of been" -canNever

Yup - "might of been" was used by Lataro in at least seven different game threads 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. I can't find it used by anyone else in mafia.

So either it's Lataro, or it's someone who noticed the quirk and is trying to frame Lataro, or it's someone who just happened to use that construction for the first time in the scumchat. That second category obviously includes VectorZero, but may include others as well. I'd say that's fairly strong evidence - if it was almost anyone but Lataro, I wouldn't believe they'd posted that codeword list. But he's devious enough to do it, and we are one short on Astral Echoes casting messages. The spell was announced:

- In the opening post, May 23, 11:47 UTC - probably one of the arcane voice messages.
- Twice on May 24, 02:26 UTC - one of these was mine, the other may have been the second arcane voice message.
- Once (after Lataro posted) on May 24, 04:11 UTC - also mine.

So perhaps both Lataro's post and the player-codeword list were faked Astral Echoes. Also, the fact he pointed out the British English thing is interesting if you're looking it from the perspective of it being a scum-generated message. If you're going to post a message like that, inserting a subtle hint to try and frame someone else is logical.

It's not iron-cast proof, because anyone who noticed the quirk could be trying to frame him, but it's enough to make me very suspicious.

[DaBigCheez]

Adacore - Re-reading the Echoes reports, the evidence for two Specialists is weaker than I thought (as they're primarily debating sets of two options for an individual player), but the main line that seems to me to indicate two Specialists is this:

barrel, i believe you haven't sent anything yet? u should probably go evocation. more dependable. the best defense is offense, and opus seems lacking in offense. then i go for the more defensive set to be more well-rounded. i think we should complement each other anyway, so tell me when you choose and what

This could be just talking about L1 shield spells etc., or could be the High Wizard talking about spell selection, so it's not as much a "proof" as I originally thought, but the language makes me think "2 Specialists trying to combo with each other".

[weiyaoli]

Scum's just muddying the waters right now.

However, we do know this: The codenames that we know relate to scum in that code list are most likely given to either townies or sorcerers. Search elsewhere for the scum. Now, who other than those given scum codewords in the false list, is under suspicion?

And that isn't muddying the waters at all...? FoS: NAR

[Lataro]

I of course can't say much on this that isn't wine, however, I specifically replaced out of Inception because I absolutely hated the codeword system as it took too much effort to deal with post after post.

As for why I'm always quick to bring up British vs US spelling differences, I use Firefox, and it has spell checker on any field I type in, and it's pretty obvious when I scroll over a message and see words underlined in red, when it's not set to work with British English, I didn't even notice that til I copied the echoes report into my post and saw that.

I'd have to say that VZ making the point he's made here sounds to me like scum that was trying to fake a way that I normally type, as I tend to type like I'd talk, since fuck being proper, I'm done with college. His whole post has an "But it must be!" feel to it, and I'd describe it as almost frustrated that someone else didn't notice and he had to point it out to everyone.

I think we have our scum here.

[VectorZero]

His whole post has an "But it must be!" feel to it, and I'd describe it as almost frustrated that someone else didn't notice and he had to point it out to everyone.

...Could be easy to fake though...Not beyond reasonable doubt

I think we have our scum here.

OMGUS is OMGUS.

[mpolo]

A grammar error like that would be pretty easy to fake by anyone. There is certainly a slight bit of suspicion that comes with noting that error, but for me, the revealing of the codebook counts for much more. It's not a 100% alibi, but it's strong enough for day one to make me include Lataro on the townier side of things.

[DaBigCheez]

Assuming it's correct, at least. It is in direct contention with another claimed code (the feats one), but atm I trust Lataro's more due to greater detail and additional chat going along with it (not to mention that the other code was claimed via a risk-free AV, whereas Lataro exposed himself).

Other than that, I'm just going to agree with

OMGUS is OMGUS.

And yeah, NaR...as we've gone over, odds are pretty high that the scum would have just randomized the list, so we shouldn't use it to draw conclusions one way or the other. Just ignore it, don't "search elsewhere for the scum".

[greenlover]

Well, I just realized that I haven't made a single post so far beyond confirmation. Sorry for my absence, life got busy.

The points made against Lataro seem strong, but I am not sure if I feel comfortable about lynching someone based on their grammar skills. It just seems as though mimicking someone else's posting style would be too easy. However, if no better option comes up, I would be more willing to lynch Lataro on grammatical evidence rather than lynch someone else based on no evidence at all. Furthermore, his recent defense hasn't done much to make him look more towny in my eyes.

Moving on to the echo's. Though these seem quite useful, I would caution against treating anything posted as an echo as gospel, simply because first, we don't know what echo's are faked, secondly, we don't know what echo's were planted by the scum to mislead the town, and finally, if I understand it correctly, Astral Echo's doesn't just pick up scum messages - it picks up all private messages. Thus, we can't know what is coming from the scum and what is not. I'm not saying that Astral Echo's isn't useful, but simply to take it with a grain of salt.

[DaBigCheez]

if I understand it correctly, Astral Echo's doesn't just pick up scum messages - it picks up all private messages.

This is true. However, as I understand it, only sorcerors were allowed to cast during N0, and so the only PMs that could be circulating are 1) scum PMs, or 2) if a sorceror decided to cast an Arcane Voice during N0 just to send a random message/establish a link with someone, which I don't see much reason for when they could be putting up their defenses or firing MOAR MISLE.

During future days, Arcane Echoes will likely be a lot less useful - minimizing use of Arcane Voice for anything other than the day-cast anonymous public message will help it return more useful results, but there's pretty good chances we'll just get gibberish and spam even if we hit only scum PMs.

[RoadieRich]

if I understand it correctly, Astral Echo's doesn't just pick up scum messages - it picks up all private messages.

This is true. However, as I understand it, only sorcerors were allowed to cast during N0, and so the only PMs that could be circulating are 1) scum PMs, or 2) if a sorceror decided to cast an Arcane Voice during N0 just to send a random message/establish a link with someone, which I don't see much reason for when they could be putting up their defenses or firing MOAR MISLE.

During future days, Arcane Echoes will likely be a lot less useful - minimizing use of Arcane Voice for anything other than the day-cast anonymous public message will help it return more useful results, but there's pretty good chances we'll just get gibberish and spam even if we hit only scum PMs.

It could also be from someone who (pretty much) wasted a feat to take Preparedness: Arcane Voice.

I've been sitting back, because I really don't like D1's. If it wasn't a good reason for running forum games otherwise, I'd always start with a real Night phase, complete with a scum kill etc. But that's kinda irrelevant, isn't it.

I do agree that Lataro's list of "codewords" does seem a little scummy: what's the odds that there's a first PM we've just not received yet that says, "Make up a code, then let's give someone a whole lot of town cred by posting it." Especially as it's the sort of thing I'd pull myself if I was scum, and hated having to use the code, as Lataro has already stated. It's impossible to really prove either way, without someone dying - either Lataro, or someone who can cast a cop-type spell (who would need to die to prove it's not scum falseclaiming a result). Of the two, I obviously prefer the former, as there's so many ways the latter can go wrong: alter alignment, just for starters.

One suggestion: if someone states that they're a casting a spell on someone, they need to post soon after the mod announcement: we know (think) scum have at least one Trap Card, and Town are unlikely to have a Trap active on spells town want to cast on them, so (somewhere in this convoluted paragraph I think I make sense) if someone gets trapped, (i.e. they don't even say, "success, more later" or "I failed somehow") soon after the announcement of the spell being cast, there's a pretty good indication that we've found scum.

That last paragraph probably made no sense to most of you, for which I apologise.

[llamanaru]

Sorry, I've been in the same boat as greenlover.

I think that the grammar in the echos that VectorZero pointed out isn't all that incriminating because it's one of the easier grammar errors to fake. However, Lataro's overreaction was incriminating, because town wouldn't have reason to do that. Perhaps it's just his style, I've not played enough games with him to know.

Ninja'd by RoadieRich. Your suggestion about Lataro's codewords seems plausible. Though it could just be scum trying to give doubt to the codewords so we disregard them.

[PhoenixEnigma]

With regards to the grammar thing, I'm of the opinion that while it's not conclusive, it's distinctive enough to mean something - that is, it's either a frame job or it's legit, as opposed to chance. If it were anyone but Lataro, I'd probably agree with llamanaru, but, well, it is Lataro and he's playing like Lataro.

I also think RR's suggestion is pretty good - if you're calling your casts (as it were) anyways, confirming it soon after gives us a shot at what amounts to a bonus cop with each cast, and also makes trap card a little riskier for scum to use.

[DaBigCheez]

Yeah - honestly, from what I've seen in other games, Lataro's response seems positively mild for him

Granted, I think he was scum in all the games I've read through so far (and thus, trivially, in all the games I've read wherein he reacted...strongly)

[Lataro]

You know what? Fuck it, lynch me.

I'll finish my current games, but I'm done signing up for 'em.

"Lets lynch Lataro just because" is far too common of a theme and is getting more than tiresome.

So lets do this, lynch me, and then we'll be done with it, I'm positively sick of this crap, I'll just stick to modding only.

Vote: Lataro

[VectorZero]

"Lets lynch Lataro just because" is far too common of a theme and is getting more than tiresome.

That would be a valid point if, you know, that was the reasoning behind my argument.

[DaBigCheez]

"Because he's Lataro" is one of the main points of most of the people *defending* you :/

[_infina_]

I refuse to participate in a Lataro lynch, if the condition of lynching him is to lose him as a player for our games. If the consequence was the same either way, then I would look a bit more closely at the possiblity of Lataro being scum. He is surrounded by a lot of wine, though. Damn it all.This is going to be a hard choice, for me at least.

[Lataro]

I refuse to participate in a Lataro lynch, if the condition of lynching him is to lose him as a player for our games. If the consequence was the same either way, then I would look a bit more closely at the possiblity of Lataro being scum. He is surrounded by a lot of wine, though. Damn it all.This is going to be a hard choice, for me at least.

This is immaterial, my decision already is made that the two games I'm in will be my last, for some time at least.

"Lets lynch Lataro just because" is far too common of a theme and is getting more than tiresome.

That would be a valid point if, you know, that was the reasoning behind my argument.

It's not just you in specific, it's others, and it's not so blatantly obvious as that. There are multiple people discussing lynching me mentioning, "Lataro is crafty/dangerous/sneaky/whatever enough to think to do that". Lines like this are used constantly in the majority of games I'm in as reasons to lynch or distrust specifically me. It's flattering in a way that you all put no clever scheme past me, at the same time though, it's completely impossible to defend against, and it's led to me being lynched regardless of my alignment several times. It's not fun at all to constantly have to deal with that "argument" made against me, as it has no basis in most games I'm in (To my knowledge, I have never straight up bussed a scummate straight off the bat just for town cred, I have never faked a posting style, and I have never done a plethora of other things people argue that, "That's the kind of thing Lataro might do". Arguments like this are constantly used by people as strikes against me, and it's tiresome when half the things they use this reasoning for are things I've never personally done).

Look, I'm a crappy little one tier above the lowest rank townie, I have only defensive spells, and AE prepped. I'm not a huge loss. If everyone is just going to drone on about how scummy I am based on absolutely no action I've actually took in game that they have valid reason to suspect me of taking, then fine, lynch the crap out of me to confirm the codeword list I posted. There is absolutely nothing I can see to do to defend against "That's the kind of thing Lataro would do" and am sick of trying. Town gets a benefit from my death in the form of absolute confirmation of my AE results, so lets do it, because I sure as hell am not going to even try and defend myself against the logic being used against me.

For the record, I was thinking Weeks as well along with JC for possibly being behind the idea for the codewords, I had planned to bring them in to the picture after they, ya know, posted something, but as they haven't since this started, now is as good a time as any, not that it matters.

[VectorZero]

Are you able to shield one of the MMs, should it be decided to be a good thing to do?

[Adacore]

Look, I'm a crappy little one tier above the lowest rank townie, I have only defensive spells, and AE prepped. I'm not a huge loss. If everyone is just going to drone on about how scummy I am based on absolutely no action I've actually took in game that they have valid reason to suspect me of taking, then fine, lynch the crap out of me to confirm the codeword list I posted.

This is one of the main reasons I was seriously contemplating a lynch. You've explicitly claimed non-power, so if you're town then lynching you isn't a disaster.

And I agree, having a reputation as being an exceptional player (either as town or scum) sucks when it comes to mafia. The best town players are normally NK'ed N1, the best scum players are (albeit less reliably) lynched D1. Players who are just mediocre, like me, tend to survive to the end-game, at least when we're town - no matter how hard I try I never seem to manage to get myself killed off early as town. It's one of the biggest problems with the meta-game of mafia - it punishes good play.

A Detect Magic on Lataro might help us here, if anyone wants to use one. He should have 5 spells left, so 'moderate magic', if he's telling the truth. If he's a specialist then the only way he could have 'moderate' magic is if the arcane voice was quickened and he already cast two more slots of spells in the Day (taking him down from the initial 8 to 6 total), which I think is unlikely. If he's the good HW, or a sorc, he'll show up as strong or very strong. This doesn't help us if he's a Good Apprentice or Good Novice, of course, but it would rule out his being a scum power-role at the very least.

If my speculation on the speaker in the PMs I got through echoes being HW is correct then Lataro is being framed if a Detect Magic result comes back as moderate. So - is it worth trying? Detect Magic is probably most useful against suspicious players in the early game, before the power roles can cast enough spells to get them down into the moderate category.

[Lataro]

Are you able to shield one of the MMs, should it be decided to be a good thing to do?

I can cast one spell per cycle. That spell today was AE, I can't cast anything at all til D2, which I won't survive til, so it's a non-issue. Not that it matters, but I prepared the following:

Shield
Panacea x2
AE
Bolster

Warp Spell (For non-self cast Panacea, and possibly a night-cast AE)

So, short answer, no.

[VectorZero]

As I read the Detect Magic ability, a specialist would return moderate magic at full power. It says spell slots (i.e. 4 lvl 1 & 2 lvl 2), not spell levels (i.e. 4 lvl 1 & 4 lvl 2.)

Ninja'd. Huh? Did you have AE prepped or not?

[Lataro]

As I read the Detect Magic ability, a specialist would return moderate magic at full power. It says spell slots (i.e. 4 lvl 1 & 2 lvl 2), not spell levels (i.e. 4 lvl 1 & 4 lvl 2.)

Ninja'd. Huh? Did you have AE prepped or not?

I'm confused by what you are asking here. I clearly said in my post AE is one of my spells. It is a cantrip, thus, it is not used up when cast, same for Bolster. I really don't know what you are getting at with this question.

Are you able to shield one of the MMs, should it be decided to be a good thing to do?

I can cast one spell per cycle. That spell today was AE, I can't cast anything at all til D2, which I won't survive til, so it's a non-issue. Not that it matters, but I prepared the following:

Shield
Panacea x2
AE
Bolster

Warp Spell (For non-self cast Panacea, and possibly a night-cast AE)

So, short answer, no.

[VectorZero]

Ah, my mistake. When you said prepped, I thought you meant the feat Preparedness (forgetting that it doesn't apply to AE.) Hence my confusion when you claimed Warp as your feat.

[mpolo]

I understand fully that Lataro is tired of being boxed in the same drawer. Mav went through a period where she rarely survived night one, and then surviving night one was taken as a scumtell on Day Two. We don't always reward good play. I did mention somewhere in this thread that Lataro is crafty, but I came down on the town side anyway. So your reputation doesn't always work against you…

I would rather not lynch a weak townie on the grounds that "at least it's better than lynching a power role", if there's any chance at all of finding real scum.

[Adacore]

As I read the Detect Magic ability, a specialist would return moderate magic at full power. It says spell slots (i.e. 4 lvl 1 & 2 lvl 2), not spell levels (i.e. 4 lvl 1 & 4 lvl 2.)

I was assuming it was spell levels, but you're right - by the specific wording of the spell it should return slots.

I note that I'm wrong about needing the feat to get down to moderate magic, if he's scum specialist, and my original assumption was right about how detect magic works. For some reason I was counting a cantrip as being cast, but that's only the case if he's not scum.

I'm prepared to work with the assumption that Lataro is telling the truth, for now at least.

Mods: What result would Detect Magic give for a specialist with two L2 spells and four L1 spells? Would they have 6 spell slots, so 'Moderate Magic', or 8 spell slots, ergo 'Strong Magic'?

[Not A Raptor]

Scum's just muddying the waters right now.

However, we do know this: The codenames that we know relate to scum in that code list are most likely given to either townies or sorcerers. Search elsewhere for the scum. Now, who other than those given scum codewords in the false list, is under suspicion?

And that isn't muddying the waters at all...? FoS: NAR

Actually, I was just assuming (at the time) that our scum were stupid. It's not an assumption I should have made, as the suggestion that they would simply randomize it had not occurred to me.

[Adacore]

What is unlikely, though, is that more than two of the players listed as scum are actually scum, imo. Actually giving us the full genuine scum player list (or most of it) in a post we might, possibly, actually have beleived, would be very foolish. So it's probably marginally more likely that the players listed for scum codenames are town than scum, but not much more.

[Van]

Come up with evil schemes -> gain reputation for evil schemes -> complain about getting lynched for coming up with evil schemes (when you look scummy)?

Meh.

I don't think Lataro is trying to pull a ridiculous double blind on us, honestly. People usually do not put that much effort into faking things, the PMs are pretty long and detailed. I also think that it should be fairly easy to exclude some people from being (mafia) scum simply based on how absolutely horrible of a play the codelist was. It was explicitly stated that town would be able to get at individual PMs. What is the first thing you should think when you see that? Split your codeword list into a dozen PMs. For this to have gone down as it apparently did, it's pretty likely the scum weren't really thinking very far ahead (or hard) here.

I refuse to participate in a Lataro lynch, if the condition of lynching him is to lose him as a player for our games. If the consequence was the same either way, then I would look a bit more closely at the possiblity of Lataro being scum. He is surrounded by a lot of wine, though. Damn it all.This is going to be a hard choice, for me at least.

You really can't look at it like this. Either Lataro is scummy and needs to be lynched, or he isn't scummy and should not be lynched. The fact that he may or may not quit playing is completely unrelated.

[Aardvarki]

Mods: What result would Detect Magic give for a specialist with two L2 spells and four L1 spells? Would they have 6 spell slots, so 'Moderate Magic', or 8 spell slots, ergo 'Strong Magic'?

Detect Magic functions as it did in Wiz2 - so while I guess it was not explicitly stated in the rules here, the following still applies: Second level spells count as two slots (for both Sorcerers and the purposes of Detect Magic). The specialist you described here would appear with 'Strong Magic'.

[Aardvarki]

Effective Immediately, Weeks is replaced by Gopher of Pern.

Votals:
Lataro - 1 (Lataro)

20 Players alive, 11 to lynch. Still no time limit on D1. I won't create one unless discussion dies down without a lynch.

There is a Magic Missile following Not A Raptor!
There is a Magic Missile following Not A Raptor!
There is a Magic Missile following dotproduct!

[_infina_]

I refuse to participate in a Lataro lynch, if the condition of lynching him is to lose him as a player for our games. If the consequence was the same either way, then I would look a bit more closely at the possiblity of Lataro being scum. He is surrounded by a lot of wine, though. Damn it all.This is going to be a hard choice, for me at least.

You really can't look at it like this. Either Lataro is scummy and needs to be lynched, or he isn't scummy and should not be lynched. The fact that he may or may not quit playing is completely unrelated.

The fact that he may quit playing is an issue more important than a single game. The forum feels to me like it is in a slump, and losing a good player would not be the best of situations. But, my point was made mot. Lataro will quit either way. Now I actually need to look at the evidence against him. I am uneasy about this, though.